"In manufacturing, the ISM's employment index has deteriorated in recent months; while the non-manufacturing ISM survey suggests a more elevated level of hiring," BNP Paribas economists said. "We see little reason for this to change significantly this month."

This upcoming jobs report has also taken on increasing importance as it is one of the central components to the Federal Reserve's decision whether or not to raise interest rates at its upcoming December Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. A rate hike in December would signal the end of extremely loose, crisis-era, zero-interest rate policy, which the Fed introduced in December 2008 in its effort to stimulate the economy out of the the financial crisis.

We rounded up what 23 economists are saying ahead of Friday's report. Check out all the forecasts below.

1/

Paul Mortimer-Lee, BNP Paribas

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 150,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.1%

Comment: "Our below-consensus forecast is well-placed given the downside risks presented by seasonal trends, a typical seasonally-adjusted print for October (relative to August and September), the soft end to Q3, and the likely composition of hiring (weak external-facing and soft domestic-facing)."

2/

Ethan Harris, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 150,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.1%

Comment: "There should be weakness in the manufacturing industry, as evidenced by the early regional surveys, and mining jobs likely continued to contract amid low energy prices. On the upside, construction and service jobs should show further growth owing to healthy housing and consumer demand supporting these sectors. There have been consistently strong gains in government payrolls over the last four months heading into the new school year, so we may see some payback this month leading to a drag on overall nonfarm payrolls."

3/

Scott Brown, Raymond James

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 155,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.1%

Comment: "I'm at +155,000, but wouldn't be surprised to see anything between +100,000 and +250,000. The numbers are reported accurate to ±105,000 (if the true change were +180,000, a 90% confidence interval would be +75,000 to +285,000). In addition to statistical noise, there is seasonal adjustment uncertainty (start of the school year, end of the summer travel season). We can expect to have added about a million jobs in October prior to seasonal adjustment - so it's a bit silly to worry about the nearest 20,000 or 30,000 in the adjusted figure. A lot of month-to-month noise can be reduced by looking at the three-month average, but the financial markets will focus on the headline payroll figure. There's a good chance for a surprise and we could see revisions.

The Federal Reserve is not going to react to any one piece of economic data, and there will be another employment report in four weeks, but the message from the Fed (FOMC policy statement, Yellen comments) is that a December rate hike is likely unless the economic data are significantly softer than expected."

4/

Lewis Alexander, Nomura

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 155,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.0%

Comment: "In October, incoming data on labor markets have been mixed, and again are not suggestive of a rebound to an above-200k gain in payrolls. Although initial and continuing jobless claims data are at low levels, survey data have been negative and economic momentum so far in October seems broadly unchanged from September."

5/

Ted Wieseman, Morgan Stanley

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 165,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.1%

Comment: "Meanwhile, October is always one of the biggest hiring months in unadjusted terms - last October, seasonal adjustment subtracted 860,000 from the raw total nonfarm payroll change and 370,000 from private sector jobs - with substantial seasonality around the start of the school year and the beginning of the ramp-up in hiring for the holiday-shopping period. We anticipate those impacts will be a modest net drag on seasonally adjusted job growth this October. Timing the adjustment for the millions of temporary job flows around the summer school break is tricky, and it looks to us as if private education job growth was understated in September and due for a catch-up while state government education jobs were overstated and due for payback."

6/

Lindsey Piegza, Stifel

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 165,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.1%

Comment: "Further sustained weakness in manufacturing coupled with moderate business investment suggests another far-from-robust employment report. Service activity continues to expand, however, the modest gain is unlikely to offset sluggish activity elsewhere. We are expecting a third consecutive sub-200k report which does little to intensify expectations for a rate increase by year end. "

7/

Jay Feldman, Credit Suisse

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 170,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.0%

Comment: "There also are good reasons to expect upward revisions to the sour August and September jobs prints. The history over the past six years has shown a strong tendency for payrolls to be revised up in the October jobs report. Since 2009, net cumulative revisions to August and September jobs have averaged +80K per year."

8/

Ryan Wang, HSBC

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 175,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.0%

Comment: "The Fed's labor market conditions index has moved down over the last few months, suggesting that momentum in the labour market is not quite as strong as it was previously. Even so, the unemployment rate has been falling this year because the overall economy is growing faster than its underlying potential growth rate. At some point, the unemployment rate will reach the natural or non-inflationary level, which FOMC policymakers peg at close to 4.9%. At that stage, the FOMC would prefer to see the unemployment rate stabilize."

9/

Joe LaVorgna, Deutsche Bank

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 175,000

Unemployment Rate: N/A

Comment: "Whatever Friday's employment outcome, the financial markets would be wise to not overreact in either direction because there are still a lot of data between now and the December FOMC meeting. The most important release will be the November employment report on December 5."

10/

Michael Gapen, Barclays

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 175,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.0%

Comment: "The four-week moving average of initial jobless claims fell modestly in the October survey week, as did continuing claims. Jobless claims data continue to signal that soft external activity is not causing firms to shed labor, but it remains to be seen how quickly firms will resume a more robust pace of hiring."

11/

Michael Feroli, JP Morgan

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 175,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.0%

Comment: "We think the stepdown in August and September exaggerates the slowing in the underlying trend, and timely indicators such as jobless claims and employment surveys indicate the labor market remains relatively healthy. As far as the unemployment rate, given the rounding it shouldn't take much for the rate to tick down to 5.0%."

12/

Maury Harris, UBS

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 180,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.0%

Comment: "Our forecast for a somewhat faster increase in payrolls reflects a general re-acceleration after a couple of soft months plus particular strengthening in education payrolls and in transportation payrolls. Education services payrolls fell sharply in September— likely seasonal adjustment flaws. Transportation payrolls were likely boosted in October by hiring ahead of the holidays. While we expect the current inventory correction to be short lived, there is little sign that its impact on manufacturing payrolls is over yet."

13/

Ward McCarthy, Jefferies

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 185,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.0%

Comment: "A wide range of labor-related data indicates that the labor is still on solid footing and capable of generating solid payroll increases. These important labor market barometers include jobless claims, the ISM NMI employment index, the near-record level of job openings in the JOLTS data, the composition of the ADP data and the continued improvement in small business optimism."

14/

Doug Porter, BMO Capital Markets

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 190,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.1%

Comment: "We just believe that the underlying trend is considerably firmer than what we saw in September, and are looking for a rebound closer to said trend. Even with the cooldown in the prior month, the average payroll gain over the past six months has been almost 200,000, and we believe that is close to underlying job growth at this point."

15/

Chris Mischaikow, Goldman Sachs

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 190,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.1%

Comment: "Based on better-than-expected labor market data this week, we have revised up our forecast for October nonfarm payroll growth to 190k from 175k previously. Our revised forecast is marginally above consensus expectations of 182k by about 0.1 standard deviation of a typical surprise. Our forecast is up from the August and September gains of 136k and 142k, but in line with the average year-to-date gain in 2015 of 198k. Labor market indicators were mixed in October, with the employment components of service sector surveys generally stronger and manufacturing sector surveys generally weaker. In addition, the Help Wanted Online index improved in October and warmer-than-average temperatures were favorable for job growth."

16/

John E. Silvia, Wells Fargo

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 190,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.0%

Comment: "Despite the disappointment in last month's report, forward looking indicators remain positive. The share of small businesses reporting plans to hire have improved in recent months and the share reporting jobs are hard to fill has also remained at a relatively high level, possibly indicating a pickup in wages in the coming months."

17/

Millan Mulraine, TD Securities

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 193,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.1%

Comment: "The expected rebound in jobs growth has less to do with a fundamental improvement in underlying labor market fundamentals but will instead reflect more favorable seasonal factors and a statistical bounce from two months of weakness. The gains are expected to be concentrated in pro-cyclical sectors like retail trade, leisure and hospitality, and professional services. Public sector employment should also add to the topline, accounting for 15K new jobs. Job losses in manufacturing (down 5K) and mining (down 8K) should persist, as the fallout from the strong dollar and lower energy prices continue to work its way through the economy."

18/

Paul Ashworth, Capital Economics

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 200,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.1%

Comment: "While the pace of employment gains has softened, the latest labor market indicators don't point to an extended slump. Jobless claims have remained unusually low. The ISM non-manufacturing employment index is at a level consistent with monthly gains in private services payrolls of more than 250,000. And the Markit manufacturing employment index rebounded to 52.9 in October from 51.4, leaving scope for a modest, albeit brief, rebound in factory payrolls."

19/

Tom Porcelli, RBC Capital Markets

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 200,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.0%

Comment: "We think the ramp-up in holiday hiring plans will help boost payrolls back to north of 200K over the course of the next few months and our official call for October is 200/190K for headline/private. In an environment where the Fed is now promoting slower job growth as the cyclical norm (i.e., NFPs in the low 100K zone are "good enough"), prints in the mid-200K vicinity could help them pitch a December rate hike even more convincingly."

20/

Ian Shepherdson, Pantheon Macroeconomics

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 200,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.0%

Comment: "In short, we are in the dark, temporarily at least. But we note that the fourth quarter has seen payroll gains accelerate in each of the past three years, as our next chart shows, and we can't rule out a repeat performance this year. Indeed, some combination of upward revisions to the August and September numbers and strength in the fourth quarter data is our base case, though we are open-minded."

21/

Chris Rupkey, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 200,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.0%

Comment: "This is not a report of serious weakness in the U.S. economy. In fact, the ISM manufacturing index for new orders and production were up strongly. New orders jumped 2.8 points to 52.9 and Production rose 1.1 points to 52.9 as well. It is Employment that is the big drag today, tumbling 2.9 points to 47.6 in October from 50.5 in September. And before you start wondering whether this means payroll jobs are going to be weak on Friday, think again as this index just covers manufacturing. About 8 percent of all jobs out there in the U.S. are in manufacturing. We still expect payroll employment to rise 200K on Friday for October after slower readings of roughly 140K the last two months."

22/

Jim O'Sullivan, High Frequency Economics

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 210,000

Unemployment Rate: 5.0%

Comment: "We have been highly skeptical of the drop-off in payrolls. In part, our skepticism has reflected the tendency for August and September data to be underreported initially. Even more important, jobless claims have provided no corroboration. Indeed, their four-week aver- age is down another 13K since the sample week for the September employment report; the level is now at its lowest since 1973."

23/

Brian Jones, Societe Generale

Non-Farm Payroll Gains: 220,000

Unemployment Rate: 4.9%

Comment: "Fundamental and technical factors underpin our call for a significant pickup in job growth in October. The average number of persons filing initial claims for unemployment insurance contracted by 9,000 to an expansion-low 264,000 over the five weeks leading up to the October canvassing period—implying that the pace of layoffs has slowed considerably since September."